Ukraine Leader Forms Alliance With Rivals

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: August 4, 2006

President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine allied himself on Thursday with a parliamentary coalition led by his critics and rivals after negotiating a nonbinding agreement that he said would preserve his main policy goals, including integrating the country into Europe and NATO.

Mr. Yushchenko described the agreement -- grandiosely called a National Unity Universal -- as an effort to bridge Ukraine's ethnic, social and economic divisions after months of political chaos and stalemate following inconclusive parliamentary elections in March. But it also put him in the position of supporting as prime minister a man he once denounced as a bandit, Viktor F. Yanukovich. The reversal prompted new accusations of betrayal on Thursday.

''I call on the nation to understand that today we have a unique chance to bring together both banks of the Dnieper River,'' Mr. Yushchenko said after the signing of the agreement, referring to the geographic landmark that, roughly, divides the country into nationalistic-leaning and Russian-leaning halves.

Mr. Yanukovich, whose initial fraud-tainted victory in the 2004 presidential election was overturned by protests, is now poised to complete a remarkable comeback as the country's new prime minister. A final vote on his candidacy was postponed at least an additional day, however, as some uncertainty remained about the exact shape of the ''grand coalition'' being formed.

In elections in March, Mr. Yanukovich's Party of Regions won the largest number of seats in Ukraine's Parliament -- 186 of 450 -- but failed to form a majority coalition until last month, when the Socialist Party, which once supported Mr. Yushchenko, defected. That effectively left the president with little choice but to acquiesce, though he chose to do so only after a legal deadline had passed, announcing his decision in the wee hours of Thursday to support Mr. Yanukovich. With the Communist Party's support, Mr. Yanukovich has enough votes to become prime minister, a position he held when he faced Mr. Yushchenko in the 2004 election and its turbulent aftermath, when tens of thousands massed in Kiev, the capital, in what became known as the Orange Revolution.

Mr. Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine, finished a distant third in the March voting, winning only 86 seats. Reuters reported Thursday that a senior aide to Mr. Yanukovich had said that Our Ukraine members would hold some important posts in the new government, which under recent constitutional changes would have greater powers in relation to the president, especially over the economy and domestic policy.

The agreement covered many of the main issues facing Ukraine, but also papered over some deep differences between Mr. Yushchenko and Mr. Yanukovich, whose positions in general favor closer business and political ties with Russia.

It called for Ukraine to continue to cooperate with NATO, for example, but to put a decision to join to a referendum, which would almost certainly fail. It also called for efforts to support Ukrainian as the state language, but to guarantee that citizens could use Russian freely, an emotional issue that Mr. Yanukovich's supporters pushed in several cities and regions before the elections.

In theory, the new coalition could control 323 seats, a sizable majority, but there were reports that some of Mr. Yushchenko's supporters in Parliament objected to the coalition. The new opposition party, led by Yulia V. Tymoshenko, appealed to his supporters to defect.

Ms. Tymoshenko, who was Mr. Yushchenko's first prime minister for eight months before he dismissed her last September, called Thursday's agreement ''a political capitulation.'' Her bloc of supporters refused to sign it and continued to boycott parliamentary proceedings.